The Trump-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report and Report of Evidence in the Democrats' Impeachment Inquiry in the House of Representatives by House Permanent Select Committee

Author:House Permanent Select Committee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Melville House
Published: 2020-01-13T16:00:00+00:00

Mr. Cipollone’s letter elicited immediate criticism from legal experts from across the political spectrum.72

Mr. Cipollone wrote a second letter to the Committees on October 18, declaring that the White House would refuse to comply with the subpoena issued to it for documents.73

On November 1—after the House had already issued several subpoenas to White House and other Executive Branch officials for testimony—the Trump Administration issued a new “Letter Opinion” from Assistant Attorney General Steven A. Engel to Mr. Cipollone. The Office of Legal Counsel opinion sought to extend the reach of the President’s earlier direction to defy Congressional subpoenas and to justify noncompliance by officials who could not plausibly be considered among the President’s closest advisors.

Mr. Engel’s opinion asserted that the House’s impeachment inquiry seeks information that is “potentially protected by executive privilege” and claimed the Committees’ deposition subpoenas are “invalid” and “not subject to civil or criminal enforcement” because the House’s long-standing deposition rules do not allow the participation of attorneys from the White House or other government agencies.74 These claims are without basis and unsupported by precedent.

The Letter Opinion cited statements from previous Presidents and Attorneys General that directly undercut the Administration’s position. For example, President James K. Polk, stated that in an impeachment inquiry the House had power to “penetrate into the most secret recesses of the Executive Departments.”75 In addition, Attorney General Robert H. Jackson, who later served on the Supreme Court, stated that “pertinent information would be supplied in impeachment proceedings, usually instituted at the suggestion of the Department and for the good of the administration of justice.”76

In his letters conveying the President’s direction, Mr. Cipollone advanced remarkably politicized arguments and legal theories unsupported by the Constitution, judicial precedent, and more than 200 years of history. These letters effectuated the President’s order and campaign to obstruct and thwart the House’s exercise of its sole power of impeachment under the Constitution. They are rebutted as follows:

The Impeachment Inquiry is Constitutional: According to Mr. Cipollone, “the President did nothing wrong,” and “there is no basis for an impeachment inquiry.”77 President Trump has repeatedly described his call with President Zelensky as “perfect.”78 Speaking for President Trump, Mr. Cipollone also asserted that the impeachment inquiry is “partisan and unconstitutional,” “a naked political strategy that began the day he was inaugurated, and perhaps even before,” and that it “plainly seeks to reverse the election of 2016 and to influence the election of 2020.”79

However, as this report details in Section I, Congress found abundant evidence of a scheme directed by the President to solicit foreign election interference by pressing the newly-elected President of Ukraine to announce publicly politically-motivated investigations to benefit President Trump’s own reelection campaign. Fundamentally, the Constitutional validity of an impeachment inquiry cannot depend on a President’s view that he did nothing wrong or on the political composition of the House. Such an extreme reimagining of the Constitution would render the Article I impeachment power meaningless and provide the President with power the Constitution does not grant him

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